This first appeared as PATImes column in February 2008.

Creating Accountability in Collaborative Networks:
Can It Be Done?
by John M. Kamensky

How do you tackle complex management challenges like the response to Katrina, counter-terrorism, watershed management, the Human Genome Project, or going to Mars? Traditional bureaucratic hierarchies don't seem to work. Market-driven approaches, such as competition and choice, don't seem to be effective. The use of collaborative approaches is being touted, but there are concerns about how to ensure their accountability for getting things done. Collaborative approaches seem to hold promise, but their expanded use is being held back, in part because of the unease of leaders in being able to address the accountability issue.

Public administration scholars are busy examining the promises of collaborative networks in getting the public's work done - Donald Kettl, Robert Agranoff, Myrna Mandell, Michael McGuire, Brent Milward, and Keith Provan have all conducted practical research helpful to public administrators. Even the Government Accountability Office has developed case studies of the use of collaborative networks. Collectively, they are beginning to sketch out some useful practices, and are describing efforts by practitioners to make sense of their changing world.

Interestingly, this same challenge of how to structure large organizations to be more responsive when tackling complex challenges, is alive in the private sector as well. I've recently read a new business book that seems to have some relevance to managing government: The Collaborative Enterprise: Managing Speed and Complexity in Knowledge-Based Businesses, by Charles Heckscher, a professor at Rutgers University. He has found CEOs in large corporations are - like today's government executives - struggling with the legacy of large bureaucracies that are increasingly less responsive to today's challenges in a knowledge-based economy. Like government executives, they are experimenting with collaborative approaches in their organizations as ways of overcoming the unresponsiveness of traditional hierarchies. For businesses, it is a fight for survival and relevance.

And like the public sector, a key challenge is how to develop accountability for performance within a collaborative environment. He has found that the private sector doesn't have The Answer, but neither does anyone else. Still, his observations can be helpful to public managers. Heckscher succinctly describes how the culture created by traditional bureaucratic hierarchical model culture clashes with collaborative cultures. He also describes how to begin to make the shift - in part by addressing the need to create clear accountability for performance in collaborative environments.

The Clash Between Bureaucratic and Collaborative Cultures.

The traditional bureaucratic culture is comprised of two different patterns. One is the highly rational, disciplined system of hierarchy and defined roles. The other is a paternalistic mindset focused on informal communities and loyalty to one's boss. The norms of bureaucracy are stability, homogeneity, conformity, deference, and inwardness. "Good performance" is defined by the boss, who sets targets and evaluates performance. Accountability is to the boss, within the hierarchy.

Heckscher observers that in a collaborative enterprise, people are interdependent with others and, as a result, are intolerant of those who don't pull their own weight. They put little stock into local attachments and paternalism. Their measure of performance is not the boss's judgment, but rather "what is expected in collaborative enterprises is performance that helps others and moves everyone toward achieving the collective mission and goal. It is, in short, a notion of performance as contribution." This is the focus of individual accountability in a collaborative network - contribution to performance.

The central organizing principle in a collaborative enterprise is not the office or the position held by the officer holder, but rather the mission or collective purpose. The core of the values system is your contribution to this mission. The most important issue is not an individual's status but rather "can you contribute to the mission?"

The Challenge of Creating Accountability in Collaborative Networks

In a hierarchy, it is relatively clear how to establish accountability, and where to point to when there is a failure in performance. You simply look at the chain of events and the chain of command. For example, the failures in the appropriate treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison ultimately resulted in punishments for those in the chain of command. The military reflects the epitome of the traditional bureaucratic hierarchy. But it is also finding that this approach does not work well in fighting terrorism in an urban environment in Iraq. As a result, the military is increasingly adopting the use of collaborative networks, such as with Sunni militants, and is having to navigate the conflicts between the bureaucratic and collaborative cultures.

Milward and Provan, in a 2006 report for the IBM Center for The Business of Government, observed that " . . . maintaining accountability is critical for network performance and for continued flow of resources." Until the accountability issue is resolved, increasing the use of collaborative networks will be difficult. Milward and Provan say "Network managers have a major responsibility to ensure that those who participate in a network are responsible for their share of network activities and are held accountable for their actions." But what constitutes "accountability" in a networked, interdependent environment?

In an environment of collaborative accountability, according to Heckscher: "people should be judged on their contribution to the mission or purpose of the organization - not on doing a "good job." This would include the reliability and competence of an individual and the extent to which they add value, not merely meeting targets. But who makes this assessment? Heckscher says there is no single right answer, but that this is oftentimes done via a 360-degree assessment of individuals, including program customers, bosses, and peers.

Collaborative accountability differs from bureaucratic accountability both on what is assessed, and how it is assessed. Collaborative accountability is an assessment based on contribution, by driving strategic awareness throughout the system, and by connecting rewards and sanctions to these broader themes. Heckscher says that assessments should not rely solely on 360-degree appraisals, but also include a system of reputational assessments, not unlike that done via scientific peer reviews.

But what about creating accountability for a collaborative system, not just the individuals in the system? One approach for assessing the performance and accountability of a collaborative system is via a Balanced Scorecard. Scorecards tend to reflect both the perspectives of different stakeholders, as well as the strategies the members of the collaborative enterprise are using. Rather than orienting people to their accountability for narrow pieces of the system, they would be expected to orient themselves based on their contributions to the whole, and be assessed on that basis. A key element of this working is a high degree of transparency in the performance information produced in this system so all the players - including the public - have insights into what is going on. A 2004 study by Mark Imperial for the IBM Center is an excellent case study of how transparency can be used to create accountability in networks created around managing watersheds.

While the issue of creating public accountability mechanisms for collaborative networks is not as well-defined as the mechanisms developed in past years to support the hierarchical bureaucratic model (such as personnel classification systems), there is progress. And as confidence develops in these new mechanisms - in both the private as well as the public sectors - the adoption of the collaborative network model will likely spread.

Addendum

A related report on collaboration has been recently published by the IBM Center for The Business of Government, "A Manager's Guide to Resolving Conflicts in Collaborative Networks," by Rosemary O'Leary and Lisa Bingham. Their report addresses another key challenge facing public managers in their use of networks - the fact that the organizational interests of members of a network oftentimes do not coincide and conflict occurs. Consequently, a key set of skills that successful network managers need to develop is the ability to negotiate and manage conflict constructively.

Professors O'Leary and Bingham provide practical advice on how to manage and negotiate conflicts in collaborative networks. The approach they describe - interest-based negotiation - has worked in other settings, such as bargaining with unions. It can now be applied in a diverse range of collaborative networks - from managing shared services between agencies, to managing the use of rangelands between public and private interests. Such negotiation techniques are becoming crucial in sustaining the effectiveness of networks, where successful performance is defined by how well people collaborate and not by hierarchical commands.

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